_I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven_.--Luke x., 18.


Whether the "glorious darkness" denoted by the name Satan is an actual
personage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as far
as the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominous
title applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividly
introduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in the
mystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they would
be were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and of
his utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax your
patience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as true
that literal reading of the text which has commended itself to the
ripest among our evangelical scholars.

The Scriptures obscurely hint at a catastrophe in heaven among
immortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from
their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject
are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the
suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much
to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude,
where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,
under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day"; and Peter, in
like manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, "but
cast them down to hell"; and yet these comparatively lucid passages
suggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strange
images when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war in
heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, "that
old serpent called the devil." Back of them there doubtless lies a